1 corinthians 1:4-9

And uh Albert's gonna read.

Let's read along with Albert as we go through 1 Corinthians 4, 1, 4 through 9.

I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.

That in every way you were enriched in him in all speech, in all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you, so that you were not lacking in any gift.

And as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Okay, let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word, these six verses.

And Lord, we pray that you would teach us by your Holy Spirit what you want us to hear.

Lord, our lives are each one of us.

We have different lives.

Lord, we have different responsibilities.

And we ask God that you would work in our life through this text.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

Okay, you may be seated.

You may be seated.

Okay.

So we're going through the book of 1 Corinthians as a church.

Do you know what an epistle is?

What is an epistle?

A letter.

That's right.

Thank you.

An epistle is a letter.

And so we say 1 Corinthians is a book, but it's actually not a book.

Did you know that?

It is a letter.

Who was the letter written by?

Paul.

Right?

It's written by a guy named Paul.

And Paul was a missionary in this area.

Do you know where this is on the map?

It's not in Texas.

This is not Baltimore.

This is Israel, Greece, Macedonia, Turkey.

That's where you would find that on your map if you looked at it today.

So the red arrow, the red arrow is pointing to a city named Corinth.

Now, this city had a church planted in it by Paul.

Paul shows up there in 51, 52 A.D.

and he plants a church.

First, he goes to the Jews and he tells the Jews about Jesus.

He says, You've got to find out about Jesus.

You need to be saved.

You need to give your life to Jesus.

And the Jews kind of kick him out.

And so he goes to the Gentiles.

And the Gentiles are receptive.

Now the Gentiles are anybody that is not a Jew, right?

And so the Gentiles radically accept Jesus, and there's a church that's established in the city of Corinth.

It's amazing.

And so they grow for about three years.

Paul leaves this church and he leaves some leaders there in this church and they're running it, but this church runs into some problems.

And three years later, when Paul is where that blue arrow is at.

Do you see the blue arrow?

You see the blue arrow?

You see the blue arrow, right?

Blue.

It's right there.

When you see that blue arrow, that blue arrow is Ephesus.

And in Ephesus, Paul was there and he gets a verbal report.

You know what verbal is?

Colin, I'm looking at you for these answers, okay, Colin.

A verbal report is when somebody tells on you.

Tattletales.

Has anybody ever tattleted on you?

I know.

Don't you hate that when that happens?

Somebody tattletales on the Corinthian church.

It was a guy named Chloe and his household.

They come and they visit Paul in Ephesus and they say, Paul, listen, buddy, here's what's going on.

This church back in Corinth, it's a mess.

Everybody's fighting with each other.

They're fighting with each other and they're taking sides and they're getting into clicks.

It's a mess.

Oh man, there's all kinds of stuff going on.

But not only do they tattletale, but they have a letter with questions in it.

So Chloe comes to Ephesus.

What color is Ephesus?

Blue.

Blue, right there.

See?

Yes, Ephesus is right there.

He shows up there, they show up there, and Paul's there in Ephesus, and they give them a verbal report and this letter.

Now there's all kinds of things going on in this church.

We've got factions, Hellenistic dualism, triumphalism, divisions between the rich and poor, incest, lawsuits, prostitution, meats offered to idols, disruptive women.

This is a church that had all kinds of issues going on in it.

I mean, this is a mess.

This is a mess.

Now I don't know if you're like me, but when I was growing up, so do you know who's who of you is the oldest in your family?

Anybody the oldest child in your family?

Okay, we've got somebody the oldest.

I was the oldest in my family.

And so I was a witness to a lot of messes.

In fact, in fact, I know.

In fact, when I was 12 years old, I was such a cause of family disharmony that I was given an ultimatum.

You know what an ultimatum is?

Hanele, you know what an ultimatum is?

No.

An ultimatum is you better do this or this is gonna happen to you.

You know what the ultimatum was?

You, Josh, either need to go to a doctor and get on medication, or you're gonna have to go to counseling, right?

I actually took the counseling option.

I didn't want to be on medication, but I was a mess.

I caused a mess in my family.

You know how I caused a mess?

I would go to my brothers and sisters and I would needle them.

And I was giving them a hard time.

I was picking.

I loved picking.

Did you like picking on your brothers and sisters?

No, no, no.

I don't know.

It's us us first in the family.

It's just causing so much of a mess.

In fact, I upset my dad one time so much that my dad took me by the collar and he pressed me up against the wall.

And he's like, you gotta cut it out.

I knew I had crossed a line at that point.

Well, this church, this church was a mess.

A mess.

Look at all this stuff that they're doing.

Oh, and their abuse of the Lord's Supper.

There's one more on there, too.

I forgot about that one.

So look, look, this letter that we're studying, we're looking at a church that is a total mess.

Now, here's a guy named, he's still alive.

This guy right here, N.T.

Wright.

He wrote this.

He wrote this.

I'm sorry our screen is hard to see.

He wrote this.

He says, his central concern, meaning Paul, Paul's central concern here, and throughout his life work, was quite simply Jesus.

The name occurs eight times in these first nine verses.

Paul couldn't stop talking about Jesus because Jesus, without Jesus, nothing else he said or did made any sense.

And what he wants the Corinthians to get a hold of, most of all, is what it means to have Jesus at the middle of your story.

Your life, your thoughts, your imaginations.

If they can do that, all the other issues that rush to and fro throughout the letter will sort themselves out.

Jesus is what Paul keeps talking about eight times in just these first nine verses.

So let's look at this.

We're gonna go through, we're gonna go look at verse four, and then we're gonna look at verse five and six, then we're gonna look at verse what comes after five?

Six and seven.

Yep.

Then we're gonna look at six and seven or seven and eight.

We're gonna look at seven and eight, and then verse nine.

Are you ready?

And each of you have a role right here.

I'm glad you sat in the front because you each have a play, a place to play in this.

The first verse that we're gonna look at is verse four.

I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.

What does he do?

What does Paul do?

What kind of action does he take here?

He gives thanks.

Do you see that?

You see that in the text?

Do you see that?

You see that?

You see that?

He's giving thanks.

Now, didn't we just say that this church is a mess?

This is Paul's church.

This isn't just church down the street.

This is Paul's church.

He suffered for this church.

Do you know that Paul sewed and he liked sewed tents together?

He assembled a tent.

You know what a tent is?

Like a tent that you go camping in?

Yeah.

So he assembled these tents and he did ministry.

He was self-funded.

This church didn't even pay him to do ministry.

He worked full-time funding himself, and he sewed tents.

He worked hard to get this church started, and it's a mess.

Now, when the people around you are a mess, what do you do?

What do you do?

Complain?

Does anybody complain?

Okay.

There we go.

Do you tattletale?

Yep.

If you're an adult, you call the police, right?

Sometimes.

When people are a mess, typically not high up there in terms of your action is gratitude, right?

I am thankful.

But Paul says, I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God.

Now, the way that this sentence is structured is that it's a causation.

So, in other words, we could say, Paul, why do you give thanks for the church in Corinth?

And he says to us, I'm so glad you asked.

It's because of the grace of God that was given to you in Christ Jesus.

You see, Paul is looking at them and he's expressing before God gratitude.

He's grateful to God, but not because of their bad behavior, but he's grateful for what?

The grace of God that was given to them.

He looks at them and he's like, I'm so grateful for the grace of God that was given to you.

So when he says this, I thank my God, he is following a template for the letter.

This is what we call a Hellenistic or a Greek template for a letter.

Now, when you write an email or you're taught to write a letter, what do you put at the top, right?

It's dear so-and-so, right?

And then you put the comma on there.

It's like I gotta get the comma, you know.

Didn't you go to didn't you go to school?

There's a comma that goes there.

Dear so-and-so, right?

Comma.

Then you write your letter.

And then at the bottom of the letter, you sign the letter, right?

With your name.

Why do you put your name on there?

Right, yeah, so they know who it's from, exactly.

Well, the way that these Greeks wrote a letter was they put who wrote it first, then they put who the letter was to, then they put a greeting, and then they put in there a thanksgiving or a a um a Eucharist, right?

That's that's the word thanks.

I give thanks.

So in all of Paul's letter, he gives thanks for the church, except for one.

Do you know which one it is?

The church in Galatia.

That church was upsetting to Paul, and he left out the I give thanks.

For some reason it's missing.

But here's what he says to the church in Rome.

He says, Hey, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because of your faith is proclaimed in all the world.

When you get over to Philippians chapter 1, verse 3, he says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, for you all making my prayer with joy.

Philippians 1:3

In Colossians, he says, We always thank God, the Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you.

Do you get the point?

Paul follows this format with his letters.

He always includes in there a thanksgiving.

Now, if you're kind of lazy like me, you write the same thanksgiving over and over again.

But not Paul.

Paul had these specific things that he was thankful for.

And the way that he wrote his thanksgiving, it would always anticipate a theme in the letter.

It would foreshadow something that was going to come up in the letter as you went further in.

So here's the thing.

This word, I give thanks, is the word Eucharist.

It's found in the Gospels.

I'll show you in a couple places.

It describes Jesus' activity.

In Matthew 15, 36, it says, having given thanks, he broke them.

Taking the fish, he broke them, right?

So, and we also see this in Mark 14, 23.

He took a cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave it to them.

This is the idea of praying before a meal.

Now, kids, this is a question for you.

Do you pray before you eat your meal?

Sometimes?

Yeah, good.

That's good.

That's good.

Great.

So when we pray before a meal, typically what we're doing is we're saying, thank you, God, for this meal.

And it that tradition that we have, it comes from the example of Jesus.

Jesus would take the meal and he would thank God for it.

And Paul talked about this in his tradition of giving thanks.

And so that's the picture here.

It's a prayer of thanksgiving.

I am grateful for you.

I do this for you guys.

I'm grateful for this church.

I'm driving around town and this wave of gratitude will hit me.

And what I'll do is I'll say, God, thank you for the church.

Thank you for the people that come on Sunday mornings that are coming in the Compassion Center.

It's this prayer of thanksgiving.

So here is what Paul says.

So let me see where my slide where am I at with the slides.

Okay, grace.

We're gonna come back to grace in just a second.

So really quickly, you have Christians.

If you're a Christian, you're interacting hopefully with other Christians around you.

And if you haven't learned already, not every Christian behaves perfectly.

In fact, what they say, right, is if you find the perfect choice church, if you find the perfect church, don't join it because you're gonna ruin it, right?

When you get there.

We Christians are in the process of growing into the image that God wants for us, right?

But in the meantime, we have the ability to make a huge mess.

Just like in a family, just like when you're a kid and you fight with one another, you get irritated with each other.

The church can be like that.

And so Paul here is laying down for us an example to take a not a natural step, but an awkward step that only the Spirit can author in our life of being grateful.

And this is, and look, we can be grateful for the grace that God has demonstrated in our lives.

Think of the worst Christian you know right now.

Not terrible.

My pastor told me to think of the worst Christian I know yesterday at church.

I know I'm such a failure as a pastor, but okay, think of the worst pastor, the worst um pastor you know.

Yeah, there you go.

Think of the worst Christian you can think of, right?

What does the grace of God look like?

What does the grace of God look like in that person?

I guarantee you that the grace of God is there.

Maybe it's not dominating their life.

Maybe they are a mess, maybe they are divisive, maybe they're causing issues and pain for you.

But I guarantee you this if they are a genuine Christian, the grace of God has been at work in their life.

And you can thank God that his grace is there, has been there, and it's presently available to them.

It's just because they're a pain in the neck to you, doesn't mean that God doesn't want to pour out his grace on them.

He can do that.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

Okay, so when we talk about grace, here's I want I want to help you guys, because grace is like very generic as a term, okay?

So this might go over your guys' head a little bit, but when we talk about grace, there this is um synonymous with or the same thing essentially, or there's a lot of overlap as the new covenant, right?

When we talk about the new covenant, grace, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Those are all the same type of thing.

It's God's activity on our behalf.

There's some nuance there, but generally, generally, when we talk about the grace of God, we're talking about God's work in our life.

Now, a lot of Christians, listen up, because there's a lot of Christians who think of the grace of God in terms of salvation, right?

That, oh, I'm saved by God's grace.

I'm not going to hell because of God's grace.

I'm forgiven of my sins because of God's grace.

And you would quote a verse like this.

I'm sorry this is so small, but it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, right?

That's a famous verse out of Ephesians.

So the grace of God for salvation, right?

That gets you into God's family.

But that's not all that God's grace is for.

Did you know that?

You look like you didn't know that.

Watch this, gonna blow your mind here.

Grace is also for life, to do life.

Now, have you ever had a hard day?

Have you ever had somebody thank you.

You're very honest.

Colin, tell me about it.

I'm sure you know what a hard day is like.

Yeah.

Listen, listen.

God's grace is for us to do life.

God's grace is for us to do life.

God doesn't just want you to be born again and brought into his family, and then you're good.

You got fire insurance, and now you have to just struggle and tough it out.

No, God wants you to have grace every day as you face those difficulties.

So, this is what's beautiful.

This is the covenant that God makes in the new covenant.

When we take communion, we're celebrating this ongoing, perpetual care that God gives us, this resource that God gives us.

So here's the verse for that.

I know it's small, but Romans 5.2 would be kind of our proof text.

Romans 5.2 says, through him we also have obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand.

This verse is given to people who already have grace for salvation.

This verse in Romans 5 is given to people who need grace to do life, to stand.

So when we talk about Paul, here it is, Paul saying, God, I'm thankful for God's grace in you.

I'm thankful for God's grace in you.

He's thankful for that grace, grace for life.

Not just salvation, but grace for life in you.

Okay, what's your name?

Eliana.

Okay, Eliana.

You've got to remember thankful and grace.

Can you say thankful and grace?

Perfect.

That's right.

Okay, so that's your job.

You're miss thankful and grace.

Because we're gonna build this diagram here as we go a little bit further.

Thankful and grace.

And if you forget it, I'll remind you.

Okay, verses five and six.

Verse five and six.

That, he says, in every way you were enriched in him in all speech.

And all knowledge, even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you.

So this, these two verses play an important role.

They describe the grace of God in the Corinthians.

Again, this was not just grace like the front of a holiday, you know, Hallmark greeting card.

No, this was grace in a concrete way, in a way that you could touch.

You could look at these this church's life and say, whoa, that's the grace of God in you.

But what was it?

It says that they're enriched in all speech and knowledge.

So the grace of God makes them rich, and they're enriched in speech and knowledge.

So this is this church being primarily Greek and influenced in a Greek culture.

We're all about logos.

That's the word speech, the logos, the full communication, the body of communication, and knowledge.

That's uh what the uh Gnostic or the where you get the word uh the gnosis from.

And so this church has been enriched by the grace of God in the realm of their speech and their knowledge.

So let me just kind of give you the diagram of here's what this would look like.

They have been uh the grace of God is uh them being enriched in their way they talk and the what they know.

Now, how who's five here?

Anybody five?

Anybody six?

Six, you're six, and you're six.

Okay, good.

So you're learning a lot about how you communicate, right?

Now, do they talk to you in school about anything like to say please and thank you, right?

What other kind of manners do they teach you when you're five or six with your speech?

What else?

I know when I was a kid, they uh what was really important was like how to pass, how to ask somebody to pass somebody at something at the dinner table, right?

We had actually special language.

Did you guys have special language?

Would you please pass the something or another?

I don't know why that was so important in my in my family, but anyway, that was part of the language that we were taught.

Well, the Holy Spirit, check this out, listen to this, guys.

The Holy Spirit came into this church, they were given grace, they were empowered in the way that they communicated and in what they knew.

They had, and we're gonna see this later on as we get into this.

This church had superpowers.

Did you hear me?

This church had superpowers.

The Holy Spirit, because they had a relationship with God, they had these superpowers in the way that they spoke and the things that they knew.

Some people had the superpower, the Holy Spirit power to heal.

Some people, check out this superpower.

Some people in this church had the superpower to be merciful.

You know what merciful is?

Like somebody does the wrong thing and you're like, ah, it's okay.

That's a real superpower, right?

Yeah.

Some people had the superpower of administration.

These are what we call spiritual gifts.

Now, here's the crazy thing about this church.

When we get to talking about this church and their spiritual gifts, they were a mess.

This was part of their problem.

They were like a disaster zone when it came to spiritual spiritual gifts.

First of all, they were super arrogant.

They were like, look at me.

I've got a word of prophecy, like, and I can speak in tongues, and waho, I'm like, I can heal people, right?

So they were proud about their superpowers, but they were also uh they were also uh completely disorganized, right?

So they're all doing it at the same time.

Now imagine for a second with me if Batman, Superman, what other superpowers are out there?

Superheroes are out there.

Spider Woman, yeah.

Anyone else?

Is there any other superheroes that you know of?

Captain Marvel, okay.

What if they all tried to do their own thing at their own time?

Wouldn't we have a mess on our hands?

Well, this church was partly a mess because of that.

They were using their superpowers in the church setting, and it was a disaster zone.

So, Paul here, before he gets in there to correct them, he is saying, Look, the grace of God that I'm thankful for, it has enriched you in your speech and knowledge.

These were two areas.

So listen, listen to this for a second, adults.

The reality of them being gifted spiritually was not the problem.

It was their human use of that spiritual giftedness.

And so Paul is gonna put in place that giftedness.

And he's he's going to.

So what the church today likes to do oftentimes is it wants to, you have a wing of the church that wants to domesticate spiritual superpowers.

Because it's crazy, right?

That person thinks they have a word of the Lord, a prophetic word.

And man, no, no, no, no, no.

Sit down and be quiet.

Like that doesn't happen today.

Let's not allow that because that's too crazy, right?

It kind of is it just doesn't make us comfortable.

And then this person over here, they've got the gift of healing.

It's like, no, sit down.

Like, don't just behave.

This is this is supposed to be church, nice and calm, right?

So you've got a group that kind of wants to domesticate spiritual um superpowers, and then you've got a group that's kind of like 1 Corinthians, where they're just all over, they're swinging from the chandeliers and they're crazy, and there's no order or semblance to spiritual gifts.

So here, right off the bat, Paul is just saying, look, I'm grateful that the grace of God is at work in you, giving you this ability.

So, um we've got Eliana, and you are thankful and grace, right?

And what's your name?

Abby.

Abby, you're gonna have the word enriched.

Enriched, like white rice, but this is different.

Enriched.

Your word is enriched.

Okay, let's go to the next um thought in verse seven, because here's what he says, or this is in verse six.

He says, even as the testimony of Christ is confirmed in you.

Now, what?

Do you see the word sideways there?

Do you normally read words sideways?

Why did I do that?

It's because there's a word in there, in the sentence, that's the word as.

Now, when we use the word as, it means there's a comparison that's being made, right?

This is as that, right?

So the testimony of Christ is being compared or put up alongside the reality of them being enriched.

Here's what Paul's saying.

Paul is saying to this church, look, the fact that you, by the grace of God, are rich in your speech and knowledge is an evidence, it's a confirmation of the testimony of Christ in you.

Now, hopefully, in our life, we have a testimony where Paul would write something very specific about our life, and he would thank the God for the grace in our life, and it maybe wouldn't be words and knowledge, maybe it's something else.

But I guarantee you that the grace of God wants to work in our life, and the Holy Spirit is there rejoicing.

Look at the grace of God, it's winning in your life, and it's doing this, and it's confirming your testimony that it's like, Pastor, I'm saved.

I've been born again, I was baptized.

And it's like, yep, I can tell.

Look at that grace in your life.

Look at that thing that's changed, look at the way you talk, look at the way you're merciful, look at the way you don't honk at those people who drive crazy down the street anymore.

Wow, the grace of God in your life, right?

It confirms the testimony.

Okay, so we have thankful for grace, thankful in grace, you are enriched.

Yeah.

Okay.

And then you, Madison, are the testimony.

The testimony.

That's right.

You're the testimony girl.

Okay, let's go to the next, the next um, okay, this is really important.

In verse 6, this is just uh from a commentary.

Paul is saying that the changed lives of the Corinthians, specifically their speaking and their knowledge, demonstrated the validity of the message preached to them.

Listen, saints, we grow in this, we grow in this our whole life.

The gap, the gap between who Christ has made us and who we are, should be shrinking and shrinking and shrinking, right?

The reality of what God has made available to us and who we are gets smaller as we draw close to Christ.

But let's keep going because we're running out of time here.

Verses 7 and 8.

So that, Paul says, so that you are not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So let me just finish off our diagram.

Here we got thankful in grace, right?

We have enriched, we have testimony.

Testimony.

And Colin, you, where is it?

There we are.

Not lacking in any, your gift.

You're the word gift.

Just say gift.

Yes, you're the gift.

Here's the um, here's the this is kind of the structure of this diagram.

Okay?

They have the grace of God in their life, enriched in words and speech, and he finishes off by saying, you're not lacking in any gift.

This is the gifts, the spiritual gifts he's gonna talk about, the charismata.

The charismata.

Now now we call them spiritual gifts, but it's really graces, the graces of God.

You're not lacking in any of these graces.

Now, have any of you ever gone through a Christmas or birthday and not gotten what you asked for?

Have you ever not?

I did.

You know what I didn't get when I was 12?

Oh, you did too?

Yeah, me and you and your parents are here too.

Watch out.

We're gonna have a conversation.

Sorry, I shouldn't have asked that question.

When I was 12, you know what I didn't get?

I wanted baseball cards.

And my parents got me like some book, some Christian book that was cheesy.

And I was like, I wanted baseball cards, you know?

Come on.

But this church, they're receiving their gift from the Heavenly Father, and they're not lacking in any gift, it says.

They have, and this is what Paul, so this is the body of his gratitude.

This kind of closes off the thought, but this is everything that God has done.

And look at this, what he says about the present.

Here's what's going on in the present.

You're not lacking any gift today.

Today you're not lacking any gift.

As you wait for the coming of the Lord, so there's this vision of the future that you're, as a Christian, you're enriched by Christ.

You're looking forward to this future hope.

We don't have time to look at it, but this these are some of those verses.

Well, actually, I don't have the verses up here, but some of the verses are John 14.

John 14 is all about, I'm coming for you again, right?

In um when we get to Acts 1, Jesus goes up to heaven, right?

And the angel tells the disciples, why are you looking up?

He's gonna come back again.

When we get to Revelation 20 and 21, it describes Jesus coming back to this earth again.

Now, when you think of heaven, when you think of heaven, do you think of clouds and harps and little angels?

Well, you're wrong.

The future.

I love working with kids.

The future of heaven, the future of heaven, we're gonna be with Jesus, but we're gonna come back to earth with him.

And we are going to, Jesus is gonna come back to earth.

He's gonna have us with him.

We are going to dwell on this earth with Jesus reigning and ruling from Jerusalem.

And so, as Christians, we're anticipating this future day of the Lord.

Um, it says, He will sustain you to the end.

He will sustain you to the end, the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

This is the final verse.

God is faithful by whom you are called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.

This is kind of puts a capstone on all nine verses that it's God who's faithful.

And I think Paul's telling this to himself as much as he's telling them, because they're a mess.

They're a mess.

But he says, God is the one who's faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his son.

Do you know that that God loves you?

Fellowship is the idea of friendship, like the sweetest friendship.

And that's what we've been called into.

God has called us into this sweet friendship with his son Jesus Christ.

Okay, so here's our little characters: a boy and girl, Christians in 1 Corinthians 1, 4 for 4 through 9.

They are described as given God's grace.

You're given God's grace.

Thank you, Madison.

I appreciate that, yes.

Second, they are enriched with spiritual endowments.

In other words, you've been made spiritually wealthy.

Second, or third, we're eagerly awaiting the revealing of Jesus.

Fourth, we will still or will stand shameless in that day.

Have you ever felt guilty?

Listen, if you're in Christ, you have a relationship with Jesus, when you see the Lord, because of what Jesus has done, you are going to be shameless in that day.

You are not going to have your sins hanging over your head on the day when you face Jesus Christ.

Not because you got your act cleaned up, it's because of what Jesus did on your behalf.

And last, you're in, we're in fellowship with God's Son Jesus.

We're given this friendship with him.

It's an amazing picture.

Now, here's the thing.

Doesn't that, doesn't that list remind you of the garden?

You think back of Adam and Eve, right?

Adam and Eve are in the garden, and we could say that this was the case with them.

They were given God's grace, they were spiritually wealthy, they had a vision of Jesus, they weren't waiting for the revealing of Jesus.

They were standing naked and unashamed before God, right?

They didn't need to wear clothes.

And they're in fellowship with God's Son, Jesus.

Here's the reality is that when God, the work that Jesus is accomplishing in our life is not a uh it's a new covenant, it's a new work, but it's a restoration of what God originally made.

God wants to take you and I and restore us to the garden state.

In fact, the overarching theme of scripture of scripture is that Genesis 1 and 2 is coming back in Revelation 21 or 20, 21, and 22.

It's coming back.

We're being restored to that original place where God wanted us to be at.

He has this beautiful plan for us in our lives, not lacking in any gift, sustained by God to the end, guiltless, shameless, having a beautiful fellowship with God.

So, Paul, here he is.

He's facing some difficult people, and yet he's thankful.

He's thankful.

I'm thankful for you.

I'm grateful for the work that God's doing in you.

I'm glad that you're not a mess like these guys.

But even if you were, hopefully the Holy Spirit would allow me to be as thankful.

Then that's our that's our story for this morning.

What do you think?

Is that good?

Is that good?

You guys have been great.

You sat all the way through.

Amen.

Yeah, let's give them a round of applause.

Good job.

It's good to have you with us.

And these truths, these truths, as much as they are for you, they're for all of us.

We all are so grateful for the realities that Paul's talking about.